"My name is Markham. I am a relative of the governor. I am from the
East," Ethelyn volunteered, as she saw the girl expected some
explanation.
Had Hannah known more of Ethelyn, she might have suspected something;
but she had not been long in the family, and coming, as she did, from
St. Louis, the story of her master's wife was rather mythical to her
than otherwise. That there was once a Mrs. Markham, who, for beauty, and
style, and grandeur, was far superior to Mrs. James, the present
mistress of the establishment, she had heard vague rumors; while only
that morning when dusting and airing Richard's room, she had stopped her
work a moment to admire the handsome picture which Richard had had
painted, from a photograph of Ethie, taken when she was only seventeen.
It was a beautiful, girlish face, and the brown eyes were bright and
soft, and full of eagerness and joy; while the rounded cheeks and
pouting lips were not much like the pale thin woman who now stood in the
marbled hall, claiming to be a relative of the family. Hannah never
dreamed who it was; but, accustomed to treat with respect everything
pertaining to the governor, she opened the door of the little
reception-room, and asked the lady to go in.
"I'll send you Mrs. Dobson the housekeeper," she said; and Ethie heard
her shuffling tread as she disappeared through the hall and down the
stairs to the regions where Mrs. Dobson reigned.
Ethelyn was a little afraid of that dignitary; something in the
atmosphere of the house made her afraid of everything, inspiring her as
it did with the feeling that she had no business there--that she was a
trespasser, a spy, whom Mrs. Dobson would be justified in turning from
the door. But Mrs. Dobson meditated no such act. She was a quiet,
inoffensive, unsuspicious, personage, believing wholly in Governor
Markham and everything pertaining to him. She was canning fruit when
Hannah came with the message that some of the governor's kin had come
from the East, and remembering to have heard that Richard once had an
uncle somewhere in Massachusetts, she had no doubt that this was a
daughter of the old gentleman and a cousin of Richard's, especially as
Hannah described the stranger as youngish and tolerably good-looking.
She had no thought that it was the runaway wife, of whom she knew more
than Hannah, else she would surely have dropped the Spencer jar she was
filling and burned her fingers worse than she did, trying to crowd in
the refractory cover, which persisted in tipping up sideways and all
ways but the right way.
"Some of his kin. Pity they are gone. What shall we do with her?" she
said, as she finally pushed the cover to its place and blew the thumb
she had burned badly.